Summary of Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: the Gift of Contemplative Prayer (Crossroad 2003).


Each decade it seems I read a book I wish I’d written. This is one: a brilliant collection of spiritual wisdom. Here I take the liberty of summarizing the essence of the book, with these few comments as preamble:


1. Richard Rohr is probably America’s (the world’s?) most sought-after teacher of Spirituality and Spiritual Direction. He has both an amazing verbal fluency and breadth of wisdom. He’s the founder/director of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albacerqui New Mexico. (Look it up in Google and purchase some of his tapes/CDs – easy listening! Well, the teaching style is easy on the ears but the prophetic emphasis might be hard!).


2. Richard is a Franciscan, a ‘post Vatican 2’ Catholic who is critical of both liberal and conservative theological assumptions. He believes (unlike many Protestants) that God was not dead before the 15th century, and also (unlike many Evangelicals/ Fundamentalists) that spiritual wisdom may also be found in some non-Christian sources (though he is critical of many of the presuppositions of Zen, New Age spirituality etc. as well).


3. Prayer in the teaching of Jesus (and of Richard) is more about being than technique. It’s about your life, rather than how you put words together (as in adoration, confession, supplication etc. – there’s less than one page here on the components of verbal praying).


4. And how you live authentically depends on your embracing emptiness, vulnerability, nonsuccess, descent-rather-than-ascent, letting-go rather than acquiring (‘affluenza’).


5. It’s best to read this book slowly: the text is broken up into small 2-3 page chunks.


6. Richard Rohr is, in my view, ‘on target’ as a modern prophet: you’ll find many more of his articles on the JMM website.


Rowland Croucher
July 2005.
[1] CENTER AND CIRCUMFERENCE


‘Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…/ The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity’ (W B Yeats).


The two great paths of transformation are suffering (which gets our attention) and love and prayer (to get to our heart and passion).


In God’s reign ‘everything belongs’ – even that which is broken and poor (‘the poor and uneducated may love God more than the theologian or ecclesiastic’ – St. Bonaventura).


With Julian of Norwich, we move beyond either-or thinking; we live with paradox, unanswered questions, inner contradictions: ‘First there is the Fall, and then the recovery from the Fall… Both are the mercy of God.’ ‘The crucifixion was the worst event in human history and God made the best out of it to take away all of our excuses.’


The ‘Christ’ of the insecure tends to be tribal – ‘just like them’. Centred people, however, are profoundly conservative, knowing they stand on the shoulders of their ancestors. Their security and identity are founded in God. Living out of their true self they are always free to obey – but also free to disobey Church or State, to obey who-they-are in God (eg. Paul, Thomas a Becket, Joan of Arc, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day).


The problem of all of Carl Jung’s patients in the second half of life might have been solved by contact with ‘the numinous’ (God).


[2] VISION OF ENCHANTMENT


‘If prayer isn’t simple by the time you have finished reading this I will have failed.’


‘We’re already there. We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness. God is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. As we take another it means that God is choosing us, now and now and now. We have nothing to attain or even learn. We do, however, need to unlearn some things.’


All the great religious teachers tell us that human beings do not naturally see: we have to be taught how to see.


Prayer is not primarily saying words or thinking thoughts. It is, rather, a stance. It’s a way of living in the Presence, living in awareness of the Presence, and even of enjoying the Presence. The full contemplative is not just aware of the Presence, but trusts, allows, and delights in it.


God can most easily be lost by being thought found. We must never presume we see (Pharisees see sin everywhere except in themselves).


Try to say ‘I don’t know anything’ (it’s ‘tabula rasa’ in Latin).


Spirituality is about true seeing – you don’t have to push the river, because you are in it.


Religion has tended to create people who think they have God in their pockets, people with quick, easy glib answers. Jesus said to the religious leaders (John 9): ‘Because you say “we see” you are blind.’


The Great Mystery will lead us into paradox, into darkness, into journeys that will never cease. That is what prayer is about. In the parables of Jesus, four are about things that are lost or hidden. Another set of parables is about growth from very small beginnings.


There are also mixture images. Luther: ‘simul Justus et peccator’ – we are simultaneously saint and sinner. Luke 23:32-34 – note that Jesus forgives both thieves.


Another lot of parables/images – the dragnet pulls in things both old and new: he preserves the best of ‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’.


Also illumination images… The parables of the kingdom are almost always subversive with regard to conventional wisdom and so-called common sense. The poor have a head start. They have no instant fix for all problems. They remain empty whether they want to or not. The paschal mystery is the pattern of transformation. We are transformed through death and rising, probably many times (cf. the sign of Jonah).


‘It is grace that forms the void inside of us and it is grace alone that can fill the void’ (Simone Weil).


Liminality or liminal space (Latin ‘limen’ = threshold) is a good metaphor for transformation. Eg. Initiation rites, where the boy learns the way of tears, learns to ‘let go’ to become a man. The two greatest liminal experiences are birth and death.


It’s metanoia (Greek – ‘moving beyond the mind’) – turning around, repentance. This is not infatuation (‘false fire’) or control at all costs (some in high religious positions can be the blindest of all). It’s not idolatry (worshipping and protecting the means). It ideally comes through solitude (in 1400 there were 1300 Franciscan hermitages in Europe) to help break our addiction to the world.


Our society produces ‘liminoid’ experiences – substitutes, diversionary. What is, is the great teacher (Jesus refuses drugged wine on the cross). But our culture is driven by the bottom line, meritocracy, exchange rates. But prayer connects us with inherent value.


So repeat throughout the day:


God’s life is living itself in me.
I am aware of life living itself in me.


Or St. Patrick:


God beneath you
God in front of you
God behind you
God above you
God within you.


Jesus invites us to love and recognize the divine image even in our enemies. Either we see the divine image in all created things, or we don’t see it at all. If the world is a temple, then our enemies are sacred too. And the ability to respect the outsider is probably the litmus test of true seeing.


[3] EGO AND SOUL


The contemplative secret? Live in the now (‘the sacrament of the present moment’). The calculating mind is concerned with systems, the contemplative mind with Spirit.


Be still and know that I am God


Be still and know that I am


Be still and know


Be still


Be


The ‘judging mode’ ranks people/ideas (higher/lower, superior/ inferior) and is into control, comparison, competition – and all this blinds us to love. Julian of Norwich: ‘The Lord looks on his servants with pity and not with blame.’


Jesus’ crucifixion – seemingly a time of utter powerlessness – was actually his moment of greatest power.


The present moment has no competition. It is not judged in comparison to any other. It has never happened before and will not happen again.


Is the Universe Friendly? (Einstein’s question). Babies under 2/3 years experience ‘kinesthetic knowing’ – and we always live out of that knowing. This primal experience is trustworthy: we live in a benevolent universe. Scarcity is not the primary experience, but abundance.


‘Be not afraid’ is the most common single line in the Bible.


Bernham (‘Coming to Our Senses’) says the proliferation from about 1500 of mirrors was a historical watershed, leading to a split within the self, and a desire for ‘physical perfection’, a lack of contact with reality (‘ontological morrings’). We must break the material world’s hold on us, and enjoy the freedom of living as they did before mirrors and photos!


The price we’ve paid for technologies? Our soul, which now doesn’t know itself because of comparison/differentiation.


The Priority of Contemplation.


Most revolutions fail because the demon of power (from left or right) has never been exorcised. We need less reformation and more transformation. The ego leads to patterns of control, addiction, negativity, tension, anger and fear. Contemplation is not about consoling, but about reality.


Most people spend their entire lives trying to be smart, good-looking, successful, clever, rather than living in the primal ‘I’ that is already good in God’s eyes. When we are nothing, we are in a fine position to receive everything from God – poverty (Franciscans), nothingness (Carmelites), emptiness (Buddhists), the desert/closet (Jesus) – ‘in Christ, hidden in God’ (Paul, Colossians 3:3).


‘Thinking’ has taken over in the West (Descartes ‘cogito, ergo, sum’ and the Enlightenment) – the ‘private self’ (vs. the biblical ‘social self’).


Inside and Outside


Do I know who I am apart from my role, or reputation (what others tell me I should be)? Am I trying to be a ‘predictable somebody’? Or am I the sum of what I know? (The person who says ‘I know’ is the blind one, says Jesus, John 9:41).


Contemplation, returning to the naked self, helps us let go of this ‘I’ fixation. The child, says Jesus, with its beginner’s mind has no ego identity to prove, project, protect. This is ‘salvation’ (salus, healing).


True contemplation dissolves the fortress of ‘I’ by abandoning its defences: we can’t have any real access to God except through forgiving and rejoicing in our own humanity.


The problem with religion is that it clings to a small part of the whole – spinning the prayer wheel right, engaging in rituals (for Jesus there should be a holy playfulness about these).


If you understand it, things are just as they are; if you don’t understand it, things are just as they are.


The Enlightenment: I think therefore I am. Moderns: I choose therefore I am.


(The most important word in the name of our ministry’s title ‘Center for Action and Contemplation’ is not ‘action’ or ‘contemplation’ but ‘and.’


[4] CLEANSING THE LENS


Prayer is not ‘one of ten thousand things’. It’s that by which we see ten thousand things.


Aquinas did not ask where it came from, but if it is true: ‘If it is true, it is of the Holy Spirit.’


Group-think is often a substitute for God-think.


God refuses to be known except by love (John of the Cross)


So don’t spend your life comparing yourself to others’ gifts and calls. All I can give back to God is what God has given me – nothing more and no less!


Wiping the Mirror


Truth is too much for our ego, which is based on fear – especially fear of what I might not be, or won’t be successful/accepted. Today’s language – rights (‘I deserve, I have a right to…’), previously responsibilities. In the great spiritual traditions the wounds to our ego are our teachers and must be welcomed.


The fear of God (eg. In the Psalms, Proverbs) is ‘awe’ – like the awe small children have for someone they love/respect.


Teresa of Avila (Interior Castle IV, 1, 9): ‘For the most part all our trials and disturbances come from our not understanding ourselves’.


Prayer is not finally self-observation, but ‘falling into the hands of the living God’ (Hebrews 10:31)


Are you loved by someone? You know they’ll receive you and forgive your worst fault. This is the ultimate inter-personal security. (‘Techniques, rituals and spiritual disciplines are just fingers pointing to the moon’).


The Power of Free Will


In politics we demonize the other side (it’s all driven by illusion, self-interest, power and fear – especially the fear of not being re-elected).


‘Fear not’ is the most common one-liner in the Bible. We live too much in reaction to others – they’re wrong, I’m right. It’s scapegoating – projecting the problem ‘over there’. Rather: ‘we have found the enemy and it is us!’


Fear of Dragons


Kohlberg’s schema on moral development would place Jesus as a sixth-level person – a very small minority of humans (but mystical Judaism, Islam and Buddhism would also agree…)


‘Here be dragons’ was the comment at the edge of medieval maps. Our fear leads us to assume ‘they must be wrong’. To stay in our box we have to distinguish right from wrong, win from lose. A better approach: ‘Could 10% of this be true’ (win-win)?


Prayer and Suffering


We all need art, music and solitude. Prayer and suffering lead to our emotional depths (they both help us become dependent on God): they are the two primary paths of transformation. They help us connect with the suffering and injustice of the world (com-passion = ‘feeling with’).


It’s easier of course to simply obey laws. (Laws are helpful ‘information’ but they can’t produce spiritual strength or transformation – see Romans 7.


Religion without personal prayer is useless and dangerous – imagine Jesus’ contemporaries not seeing the Divine image in him!


A recluse (a ‘hermit’s hermit’) at the Kentucky hermitage said to Richard ‘God is not “out there”.’ Which addresses the basic dualism that is tearing the world apart. We believe in the resurrection of the body – that is, material and physical realities are part of the mystery.


It’s humility and honesty which lead to truth, not just information, according to the wisdom traditions. Information itself is not the key: we grow by subtraction more than by addition. The twentieth century has added nothing to the wisdom of the soul: it was all there already.


We can choose fear/illusion/self-protection – or love.


[5] DON’T PUSH THE RIVER


The holy fool knows that he doesn’t know. This paradox/ mystery was expressed by many of the Eastern fathers: ‘If you can explain it, it’s not true’. But for Protestants, their theology is mostly in their head).


Institutional religion is the least mature manifestation of the living presence of Christ.


To Be Forgiven is to Know God


Jesus to Julian of Norwich: ‘Sin shall not be a shame to humans, but a glory… the mark of sin shall be turned to honour.’ If that’s not good news, what is? Jesus doesn’t check out how many commandments the Samaritan woman has obeyed or disobeyed. Instead he makes her an apostle!


All of life is grist for the mill. ‘God comes to us disguised as our life’ (Paul D’Arcy). Everything belongs; God uses everything; there are no dead-ends; there is no wasted energy. Everything is recycled. Sin-history and salvation-history are two sides of the one coin. The Gospel is all about the mystery of forgiveness. The people who know God well – the mystics, the hermits, those who risk everything to find God – always meet a lover, not a dictator.


‘Apokatastasis’ – universal restoration – (Acts 3:41) was never condemned as heretical by the Church councils. Jesus to Julian of Norwich: ‘Since I have brought good out of the worst-ever evil… I shall bring good out of all lesser evils too.’


Two-thirds of Jesus’ teachings and one third of his parables are about forgiveness. Unforgiveness keeps us with power… but then without power.


Meister Eckhart: ‘God is closer to me than I am to myself’.


Prayer is being loved at a deep level.


Christianity is the only world religion that believes that God became a living human body.


Sex is the main thing we mostly get shocked about – while neglecting the weightier matters of the law – justice, mercy,a nd good faith (Matthew 23:23).


Spirit = mind, universals, absolutes, God. Soul = psyche, experience, particulars, ‘me’. Without soul and body work, spirit tends to be illusory, self-righteous, ideological – ie. unhealthy religion.


The Spirit as a River


Your life is not about ‘you’. It’s part of a much larger stream called God. ‘Goal-orientations’ tend to push, even create the river (which is already flowing through me). There’s a strange satisfaction in problem-solving


FEAR = false evidence appearing real.


Personal Prayer and Social Prayer


When a church isn’t teaching people how to pray, it’s lost the reason for its existence. For most churches what is all-important is attendance at a service where the clergy happen to be in charge. Church = individuals coming for their spiritual fix hen leaving.


Private/individualistic prayer is no prayer at all = pax per niciosa (a dangerous place).


Weeping is the opposite of blaming, and also the opposite of denying. The freedom to cry is a clear sign you’ve actually experienced God. The man who cannot cry is a savage; the old man who cannot laugh is a fool. The person of prayer is a person who can cry from the heart and laugh from the belly.


‘Peace of mind’ is a contradiction in terms. Those who live in their head are not at peace. We must move beyond words into silence, beyond ideas into a more spacious place where God has a chance to meet us. Prayer with words expresses to ourselves our dependence; the prayer of silence experiences hat dependence.


Buddhists say ‘We must have sitting, teaching, community.’


We are all naked underneath our clothes, more alike than different.


[6] RETURN TO THE SACRED


All transformation takes place in ‘sacred space’, ‘threshold place’ (liminality).


Plenty of churches named after Christ the King (but none are called Christ the Prophet. There is no feast day for Christ the Prophet.


‘There can be no personal conversion without also working for societal transformation’ (Pope Paul VI).


Church and State are threatened by true mystics (truly centred persons). Prophets lead us into sacred space by showing us he insufficiency of the old order (priests help us live in the new realm).


In mature religion the secular becomes sacred. The temple veil is rent (‘pro’ + ‘fanum’ — profane, ie. outside the temple.


Embracing the Shadow


In the first half of life winning is very important (‘the character lie’ – Ernest Becker). Most problems are psychological; most solutions are spiritual. The burden of the second half of life is often the reclaiming of what we have denied, feared and rejected.


Our shadow is failure itself. We scorn powerlessness and poverty, the fear of being ‘ordinary’ (which is failure in a success-driven culture). Francis: ‘Here is where I will rejoice. I will delight in nonpower, nonaggression, nondomination, nonpleasure, nonwealth, nonsuccess.’ That is freedom!


The fear of death is the existential terror about losing what you’ve never found. For Jesus life and love are eternal; we enter into it now. It’s heaven all the way to heaven (or hell all the way to hell). Not later, but now.


Augustine: ‘In my deepest wound I see your glory and it dazzles me!’ Julian: ‘God sees the wounds and sees them not as scars but as honors.’ Most of us do not thank God for our wounds – and then, not until the second half of life.


Walking the Third Way


The religion of Jesus is about attachment, falling in love, risking pain, suffering (which is better than a theory about Jesus paying a debt to an alienated God, who needs to be talked into loving us). So Christianity is not about Zen-like detachment. Jesus’ passionate union with the Father drives him back to the pain of the city. Without attachment there is no risk, no passion, no compassion, no social justice.


The tension between attachment and detachment is ‘the Third Way’, the middle way between fight and flight (‘everything is beautiful’), the contemplative stance, the way of wisdom.


Liberals are into ‘fight’ – ‘fix it and change it’; conservatives flight – denying the massive institutional evils. Liberals deny the vertical arm of the cross (transcendence); conservatives the horizontal (breadth and inclusivity).


The prophets were not deconstructed persons throwing rocks from outside Judaism. They know the real purpose of the law: their radicalism puts them outside the other two camps. They are not self-serving ‘conservatives’ but part of the great Tradition (not traditionalism, the ‘dead faith of the living’). They use symbols and metaphors to help us see the spiritual and the transcendant.


Prophets see in themselves good and bad (it’s not ‘over there’). The divine image honors the good in both myself and my would-be opponent. We do not inflict pain on another in the Divine image, but hold the pain in ourselves. We too are complicit in the evil of the world. Before enlightenment all fear, judgment and criticism is in the second person – ‘you are’. After enlightenment we join Jesus on the cross – ‘we are’.


CONCLUSION: A CONTEMPLATIVE SEEING OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE CROSS


I believe


· God is in all things – even and especially painful things. The crucifixion of the God-man is he best thing in human history


· Human existence is neither perfectly consistent nor is it incoherent chaos


· The price we pay for holding together these opposites is always some form of crucifixion


· The ‘paschal mystery’- true life comes only through death and rebirth wherein we learn who God is for us


· We should not be surprised by the sinful and the tragic. Do what you can to ‘be peace’ and to do justice but never expect or demand perfection on this earth


· Resist all utopian ideologies and heroic idealisms that are not tempered by patience and taught by all that is broken, flawed, sinful and poor


· Following Jesus is not a salvation scheme for individuals or society but sharing the fate of God for the life of the world


· God is calling everyone and everything to himself


· Institutional religion is the necessary but immature manifestation of the ‘hidden mystery’ by which God is saving the world. It is never an end in itself but an uncertain trumpet of the message


· Many live this mystery who do not belong to he church – Gandhi, Simone Weil, Nelson Mandela


· Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected is he vulnerable face of God


· The Cosmic Christ is no threat to anything but separateness, illusion, domination


· The contemplative mind is the only way of seeing all this. The calculative mind creates dualisms, win/lose scenarios, imperial egos and necessary victims


· ‘No problem can be solved by the same consciousness that caused it’ (Einstein)


GUIDE FOR REFLECTION


· What is the circumference/centre for you?


· ‘Too many words’ – why?


· ‘We are born again and again and again’


· Playful prayer involves surrender and gratitude


· Why is it easier to be against than for?


· How do you relate God to things?


· How do you relate sexually to other people?


· ‘Part of us always has to die’. What part, for you?
Rowland Croucher July 2005